


it was brave, it was rare, it was love

by archons



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Banter, Fluff, M/M, One Shot Collection, Polyamory, Teasing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-07
Updated: 2016-04-07
Packaged: 2018-05-31 18:45:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 3,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6482743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/archons/pseuds/archons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of oneshots focused on the relationship between Cremisius Aclassi, Dorian Pavus, and Briony Trevelyan, the bombastic half-dwarven child of the Trevelyan patriarch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Starts

The pile of limbs they collapse into writhes and grunts, voices mixing to match the twist of their legs and tangle of their arms. Dalish cheers; Rocky laughs; beer sloshes over the side of Bull’s tankard, and he curses through a crooked smile.  
  
Krem’s on top of the Inquisitor from what they can tell. Bull points out the arms–and the asses–and explains to the rest of the chargers who each of them belongs to. _The thick one is Briony’s. Krem’s hips are broader only by a little._  
  
Briony bites on his bottom lip, forcing an arm past Krem’s and curling it back to lock in the curve of his elbow.   
  
“How’re you so fast?” Krem laughs. Even with his muscles tight and heart pounding, he wears a smile, too, same as everyone else. “You shouldn’t be so damned fast! Look at you!”  
  
“Yeah, look at me,” Briony says, little more than a playful growl meant only for the two of them. (The others are still laughing, still drinking, still taking bets on who’s going to win.) Krem wants it to be him; Briony’s convinced they’ll end up evenly matched and happier for it.  
  
Without another word, he curls a leg around one of Krem’s and flips him over with all his strength.   
  
Krem hits the tavern’s wooden floor with a _thunk_ , particles of dust and dirt flaring outwards. His chest heaves, air catching in his throat with surprise, and when he gets his next look at Briony, he’s much closer. Close enough to feel every exhale against his lips.  
  
Briony’s eyes, shaded by his heavy brow and the length of his hair, seem to get heavier with every breath.  
  
Bull is the only one who notices when the wrestling turns into kissing. Rocky puts a sovereign on Briony, claiming that they’re practically half-brothers and that any dwarf could take a human in a fight. Skinner catches Dalish’s mug before she drops it with her careless flailing. Stitches kisses over the back of Grim’s neck, and Grim watches, a small smile pulling at his mouth.  
  
And Briony slides his tongue into Krem’s mouth, groaning at how eagerly he opens up for him. It’s a good kiss and a good start.

 


	2. Chocolate

“Oh, come on. Eat it.” Briony grinned as he rubbed the dark chocolate against Krem’s lips. The heat of his skin and Briony’s fingers melted it little by little, leaving a sweet smear on his mouth. “After what I’ve seen you eat, you can’t tell me you draw the line at chocolate.”  
  
Krem groaned, head falling back into the patterned pillows and Dorian’s arms. The mage made a noise halfway between frustration and pain.  
  
“Look… I’m willing to wrap my lips ‘round lots of things. I just don’t–I don’t do chocolate, alright?” Tugging his sleeve across his mouth, he narrowed his eyes. “Save the box for yourself, fat ass.”  
  
At that, Briony popped the chocolate into his mouth before fishing another out of the box. This one, he fed to Dorian, who licked what remained of the first off of Briony’s callused fingertips. “Delicious,” he damn near purred before returning to his book.  
  
Krem stared at him, brows flat. “S’gross.”  
  
“You’re gross,” Briony said, halfway through a chew. “Seriously, how can you not like chocolate?”

“He prefers frilly little Orlesian cakes,” Dorian interrupted without looking away from the pages. A tiny, almost secretive smile curled at the corner of his mouth. “Our Cremisius has a genteel tongue.”  
  
“My ass!”  
  
Krem snorted, kicking a leg out at Briony and nearly toppling the man over in the process. He braced himself at the foot of the bed with one arm, the other holding the box of chocolate aloft. “I’ve eaten even worse than _that_ , and you know it.”  
  
A brow rose on Dorian’s forehead as he flicked a page over with his fingertips. “You’re _very_ critical for someone who’s spent a generous amount of time with your face buried in his—“

“My ass is a _delicacy_.” Briony laughed from his belly before inhaling another two pieces, sucking the melted remnants from his thumb. Both lovers looked in his direction. Dorian glanced back towards his book, then back towards Briony, then back towards his book, slowly beginning to close it. But Krem was the first to make a move, all but tackling Briony onto the bed.

Chocolates spilled over the bear skin and thick blanket, dropping onto the floor one after the other, but neither of them bothered to save them. After all, Krem couldn’t be paid to care about the chocolate, and Briony was too caught up in his eyes and lips and hair hanging down into his face to notice.

“It is,” Krem told him. He grinned, teeth snagging his bottom lip. “So put that shit away, and let me have _my_ after dinner course.”

 


	3. The War Room

“Never thought I’d see the inside of this place.” Krem’s head fell against the heavy wooden doors of the war table room with a _thunk_ , grin spreading across his mouth. “Definitely not like this.”  
  
Briony tucked his head into the curve of his throat, pressed up onto the balls of his feet to make up for their difference in height. His lips caught on sun-warmed skin, found the curve of his jaw, smiled against it. “Well, here it is,” he murmured, hands tugging at the loose linen of Krem’s shirt. “What do you think?”  
  
Krem _hmm_ ed as Briony’s mouth found the lobe of his ear, turning the sound into an _nnh_. “They’ll be looking for you in here,” he just barely managed around the burr of pleasure in his throat.  
  
“I doubt it.” His hand slid around to Krem’s back, fingers teasing open the first knot at the base of his binder. “The most obvious place to look and all that.”  
  
Almost on cue, the doors shook, jostling and distracting the both of them.  
  
“Why is this door barred?” Cullen.  
  
“It should not be.” Josephine. “Do you think…?”  
  
Krem dug his hands into Briony’s hair and tugged him upwards into a kiss with more teeth than lips. When he pulled back and saw the eager redness in Briony’s cheeks, he knew what he had to do. “The Inquisitor’s busy!” he called out.  
  
“Oh, pardon me…” Cullen again. A pause. “Aclassi!?”  
  
“Busy!” Briony bellowed.   
  
His advisors departed after that.

 


	4. A Hard Sleep

“You’ve got a little…”  
  
Iron Bull gestured towards the corner of his mouth with a pointer finger, fighting against the laugh that threatened when a look of confusion crossed Briony’s face. “Just… right there…”  
  
The realization hit Briony all of a sudden, and he tugged his sleeve down over his hand to rub at the corner of his mouth. Everything about the Herald’s Rest seemed more muted than usual, blurred at the edges, like he was still in a hazy half-dream.  
  
“Never thought a ride from Val Royeaux would knock you on your ass for a day, Boss.”  
  
Before he could reply, Briony dipped at the knees, thrown momentarily off-kilter by a thick arm thrown around his neck. The realization of whose arm it was came quicker than the one before, and a sleepy smile pulled at his mouth. He was too heavy, too sweaty, too _nice_ to be anyone but…  
  
“’Morning.” Krem planted a kiss on his cheek first, then on his jaw. The third landed right at the corner of his mouth, drool be damned. He was too chipper to be put off. “Glad to see you finally rose from the dead.”  
  
“And without Dorian’s help.” Briony chuckled and melted backwards, broad shoulders pressed to Krem’s chest. “I’m sure he’s disappointed.”

 


	5. Letters

Word filtered back to Skyhold from the Free Marches with a painful sort of frequency.  
  
A sickness spread through Ostwick after the city’s leaders closed their walls to keep the demons out. Hercinia fought against them as hard as they could, but half of the city burned. Whatever restoration efforts continued in Kirkwall was slowed to a stop by ice that licked the docks, freezing ships in the harbors.  
  
The Inquisitor had his work cut out for him, which meant that he’d be neck deep in rifts and the like for months longer.  
  
Krem hated it.  
  
While he had his own work with the Chargers in Ferelden, being pulled apart during the first flush of their relationship was the worst kind of tease. He hadn’t gotten the chance to sneak up to Briony’s bedroom. He hadn’t been able to persuade him to skip out on any meetings. He’d barely been able to kiss him before the first letter came from his father.  
  
“Aclassi?”

Pulling his eyes away from the brown bottle in his hands, Krem looked towards the voice, not expecting much. Another patron of the Herald’s Rest, maybe someone who needed something.  
  
An agent of the Inquisition stood in front of him.  
  
(They all were these days, weren’t they?)  
  
She smiled at his attention, likely more flustered by the reason she was there than anything else. In her hand, she held a tiny roll of parchment. Small enough to be carried by a bird…  
  
Krem sat up straighter, placing his bottle onto the floor near his feet so he could reach for the note with both hands.  
  
“From the Inquisitor, is it?”  
  
The woman nodded, dropping it into his palm. Even with the note delivered, she lingered, eyeing up what she’d brought. “I’ve never seen his seal before… What is it? It looks like a…”  
  
“It’s supposed to be a bear.”  
  
“That’s very… Ferelden for a Marcher, isn’t it?”  
  
Krem snorted. “No, it’s… really not.”  
  
Once satisfied, the agent turned to leave, and Krem pulled himself out of his chair. Finding some privacy in the Herald’s Rest was an impossibility. Finding somewhere to sit, alone, in _Skyhold_ was a task in itself. But after some searching, Krem found himself on the flat of his ass on the ramparts, shaded by the battlements in the peachy afternoon sun.  
  
It was romantic. Would’ve been more so with Briony there rather than in a letter, but there was only so much either of them could do.  
  
Krem broke the seal and unrolled the parchment. A tiny scribble filled the note from top to bottom, almost impossible to read without squinting, and it made his heart race.  
  
_I miss you._  
  
No small talk. Krem smiled to himself.  
  
_The Marches could suck my cock, and I wouldn’t thank them. I want to be back in Skyhold. It’s cold, but at least I’ve got you there. I’m tired of being stolen away from you right when it gets good._  
  
“It’s always good,” Krem murmured, blunt nail of his thumb following Briony’s words over the parchment. “Stupid man.”  
  
_Even when I’m tired down to my bones, I can’t sleep without thinking about what I’d be doing if I was there. I’ve never had much of an imagination, but you make it easier to come up with that kind of thing. It’s all I think about–getting back to Skyhold and back to you. I should be thinking about saving all these people and getting the rifts closed, but my head keeps going back to you. Other parts of me, too._  
  
Krem bit his bottom lip to stifle a laugh.  
  
_And not just my cock, either. I’m talking about my heart. Feels wrong, being so far away for so long._  
  
“Too long.” Krem pressed his mouth into a line and let his head fall back against the ramparts. The porous stone plucked at his hair, but he couldn’t be bothered. “Months shouldn’t feel this long. They’re just months.”  
  
The rest of the letter continued as he expected. Briony’s crass nature was softened by his writing, but only a little. Maybe the distance played a part in that, too.  
  
Krem wouldn’t know until he returned.  
  
_Soon_ , Briony wrote. _It’ll be soon, no matter how many rifts I have to close._

 


	6. Dragon-slaying Kisses

“Dorian, kiss me.”  
  
The end of Dorian’s staff kicked up more dirt on impact than Briony’s anxiously shuffling boots. “No,” he said. His knuckles matched the white of the bones scattered around them–creatures, humans, … larger creatures, all. Firm as anything was his grip. Anyone else might have taken that as a warning. “No, I refuse.”  
  
Briony grinned, a flash under the shadow of his mustache, before leaning in closer, one broad hand twisting in the fabric of his robes. “You’ll regret it if you don’t.”  
  
“And you’ll regret dying before you’re able to bed me.”  
  
“Which is why I won’t die.”  
  
Dorian scoffed; Briony grinned wider.  
  
“It’s just a _dragon_.” Behind them, nestled on a field of flowers and splintered skulls, the Fereldan Frostback let out an annoyed puff of flames. Dorian wrinkled his nose at the smell of pine burning. “We’ve killed dragons before.”  
  
“We’ve killed _dragonlings_ ,” Dorian corrected him. “There is a difference.”  
  
Lurching forward, Briony’s mouth sealed over his, all strong tongue and teeth. It wasn’t a _maybe goodbye_ kiss. It was a _watch me while I slay this dragon_ kiss, and it left Dorian breathless, clutching his staff twice as hard and wishing he’d spent more time on choosing his more important life decisions.  
  
“There,” Briony said as he smoothed over Dorian’s robes. “Now, if I get torched, you won’t regret not kissing me.” Satisfied with the state of his coat, he turned and unsheathed his daggers, running right for the high dragon.  
  
“You won’t–you’re not going to–bah!”

 


	7. Grace

The night was made of ink and candle wax. The Chantry walls were high.  
  
A figure stood in the center of a thriving garden, clutching a satchel made of leather worn soft over years of usage. It was not his satchel, but it was not stolen. ‘Loaned’ was the word the sisters used, like his tunic, like his trousers, like his shoes. His only belongings were his skin and bones, and even those things, they taught, belonged to the Maker.  
  
They were all fools. Prattling crows, droning outdated sermons, accepting tithes from the sinful and the guilty. His father wasn’t a good man, but they took his gold. Briony wondered if he would stop forking over so much coin once he found out about his escape.  
  
Standing became pacing when the light of another candle was extinguished, leaving the courtyard just a little bit darker. The sisters were either sleeping or praying. The Chantry’s orphans were dreaming. Of what, he didn’t know anymore. The Maker’s forgiveness. Their next meal. Not waking up at all. It depended on the orphan.  
  
He wasn’t an orphan, and he was awake.  


The weight of his satchel strained the old strap on his shoulder. Worried the leather would break, Briony cradled it against his chest. There were figurines inside, carved with a careful hand, beautiful but not worth much. Andraste, Maferath, Justinia I, Beatrix III. All except one were likely unfamiliar to whoever would end up purchasing them.   
  
Not that it mattered. The coin would feed him for a few days, and that would be long enough to find a job and someplace to sleep that wasn’t the street.   
  
A lopsided smile split his dry lips, imagining his father’s horror at a Trevelyan sleeping on the ground in the belly of Ostwick. It took him a while to realize he was only half a Trevelyan when he was caught doing something undignified, but _that_ was a lesson he hadn’t forgotten.   
  
Distracted by the thought and staring at the imposing brick wall before him, Briony missed the sound of soft-soled shoes on the grass. He missed the shadow flickering across the flagstones, across the flowers, across the dark stained glass windows. He missed everything but the gentle hand on his shoulder. That snapped him back into himself, and he whirled around, clutching even tighter onto the stolen figurines.  
  
In front of him stood Sister Rosaline, dressed for sleep, her dull strawberry-blonde hair tucked into a cap. Her eyeglasses were missing, likely on the nightstand beside her bed, and she narrowed her eyes, squinting to find the details of his face.   
  
“Briony?” she asked. When she spoke, she whispered, and the tension in his stomach eased just enough to allow him to talk. There was no panic in her voice, no anger.   
  
“… Yeah.”  
  
“Why are you out here at this hour?”  
  
His tongue betrayed the lie he wanted so badly to tell.   
  
“I’m leaving,” he said. His voice was firm despite the sudden unsteadiness he felt from the inside out. “I hate it here. I wanna go away.”  
  
Sister Rosaline gave his shoulder a soft pat. “What do you plan on doing?”  
  
Briony could only shrug.   
  
“We’ll miss you.” She smiled as her thumb brushed over the leather strap of the satchel. “Everyone here adores you, even the Revered Mother.”  
  
“Everyone likes laughing at me.” The truth felt barbed in his mouth. It hurt him just as much as it hurt her, but it was her frown that did the most damage. He sighed and shifted fitfully from one foot to the other. “Not everyone, but most people. I’m not meant for the Chantry. And not the templars, either.” Rosaline opened her mouth to speak, but was interrupted. “I know where I’ll be going once I’m old enough!”  
  
That stopped her from protesting, from speaking altogether for a long moment as she stood there, bent over to see as much of his face as she could make out. Another candle was snuffed out. The garden grew darker still.  
  
Sister Rosaline reached into the folds of her sleeping gown and drew out three coins–two silvers and a sovereign.   
  
“Use this,” she said, indicating the gold coin, “to find yourself someplace to sleep while you’re searching for work. If you’re swindled or injured or taken advantage of in every way, return here. We will welcome you back without punishment.”  
  
She slipped the coins into his satchel.  
  
“Why are you–” The question didn’t quite make it out before the sister reached out and curled her arms around him. At first, he stood there, still as a statue. But after a while, the warmth of her kindness urged him forward, and he wrapped his arms around her in a quick hug. Instead of repeating his question, he murmured a quiet, “Thank you.”  
  
Sister Rosaline smiled and reached for his hand, missing completely in the blurry dark. He grabbed onto her long, skinny fingers.  
  
“You can use the front door,” she told him. “The walls are high.”  
  
Briony cast one look back at the stone wall surrounding the Chantry garden before clutching onto the worn leather satchel with his free hand. The figurines wouldn’t be worth much, and the gold wouldn’t last long, and his father would likely scour Ostwick to find his ungrateful son.  
  
But kindness would buy him shelter and freedom and time, and it only weighed as much as three coins.


End file.
